Re: What if we refuse to repeat this mistake of the Ancients: They had steam power w/o using it!


Hi, Giveit.  I think you've outlined a serious topic
here.  What have you done with it?



Hello, Martha,

Well, I haven't done anything with it personally, though I consider
myself an inventor, moving ever so slowly on my own ideas. * (Slowly
due to resource limitations.) However, my own ideas do not necessarily
include BASIC research, like antimatter! :-) Basic research like that
requires government or other deep pockets.

But I sure do lots of thinking, and others certainly can contribute
thoughts that might be useful too, like John, above. I have read that
NASA has an office for looking at extremely advanced ideas, the idea
being quite specifically that they don't want some future
generation(s) to look back and say "They had this right under their
[collective] nose and did not notice it!" Well, even THAT office might
be able to use input from thinkers out in the general public, like us.
On space.com one time, I saw a post in which the author said
[paraphrased]: "NASA, I know you guys scan these forums!" Well, maybe
NASA does and maybe it will someday prove beneficial that it does!

* I insist that so far, I have came up with three ideas before they
became publically known or done. That doesn't mean someone GOT any
ideas from me, and maybe some were in the works before I even thought
of them, and just became public later.

In order of "weight" ["weight" being a combination of serious
usefulness and cost to implement], they are: The Forever Stamp, The
Mars Microhone and what I'll call, off the top of my head in searching
for a term, the "Outrigger Based Stabilized Hydrofoil."

The Forever Stamp - Buy it at the current first class post rate and it
is always a first-class stamp. I mentioned it to a postal worker one
Christmas and six months later, the Post Office was selling them. (If
I remember my time line correctly. Actually, being AWARE of when the
PO was selling them, on my part, may be different then when the PO
actually had it available. But the worker I mentioned the idea to gave
no indication that such a thing existed at that time.)

The Mars Microphone - after hearing on CNN one Saturday that some
company was planning to send rovers to the Moon for public
edutainment, which idea I already had, I contacted one of the officers
(VP or something) by telephone to inquire. This was 1994. This might
have been LunaCorp or Luna Dev[elopment] or some such title; don't
remember off the top of my head. The VP and I talked a little while,
during which time I mentioned things like, 'what about an automated
rover on Mars, etc,. with an IMAX camera?' Anyway, he mentioned they
were having a conference or something, and I sent a letter with my
ideas to the company in advance of this conference/exhibition/
symposium. I have a notarized copy of the letter, including date, of
course. Sometime in 1994. One of the ideas I mentioned in the letter
was, what about microphones, instead of just video cameras and data-
gathering equipment, for probes to planets with atmospheres?
(Actually, I prefaced that with what might be a dumb/undoable one:
lunar rovers that, due to vibrations in the rover as it travels,
record those vibrations for later translation into "sound", so that
maybe, when replayed, one would get the idea of what it WOULD sound
like to hear the rover, even though the Moon has no atmosphere. You
know - the crunch of the soil under the wheels, etc. But that concept
led directly into me proposing a regular microphone for worlds with
atmospheres.) This letter may or may not have been on display at the
symposium. In any case, I later read that Carl Sagan proposed the Mars
Microphone to the Planetery Society in 1995 - the following year!

Outrigger Based, Stabilized Hydrofoil - I've got to come up with a
better name! I thought of this, I know, sometime before I moved from
Miami, FL to NC, in 2005. Going to the Miami International Boat Show
invigorated me and I did some thinking. Also, the ROUGH ride that you
get if want to go FAST on the ocean - such as via hydrofoil -
motivated me. SO what about a "boat" that sits on outriggers. As it
gains speed, the hull lifts entirely out of the water, and the
outriggers slice through the waves (to some extent). Propulsion could
be aircraft-type engines, or else in-water propulsion attached via
long enough pipes or whatever. Now the MAIN idea is this: based on a
certain, maximum, expected wave height and/or up-and-down motion
[unavoidable inspite of the outriggers slicing through the waves], the
hull remains at CONSTANT altitude above the waves, while the
outriggers go up and down as necessary. A comfortable ride for the
crew and passengers at high speed!

Well, if you look in this or last month's issue of either Popular
Science, or Popular Mechanics, or one of those types, you will see "my
invention!" Only I didn't do it: someone else has been working on it.
Did they start working on it before I thought of it? I don't know.

I'm only talking about ideas of mine that have already busted out into
public, no thanks to me! :-)

.

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